William Shakespeare Quotes in Shakespeare in Love (1998)

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William Shakespeare Quotes:

  • [Saying their goodbyes]

    William Shakespeare: You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die.

  • [last lines]

    William Shakespeare: My story starts at sea, a perilous voyage to an unknown land. A shipwreck. The wild waters roar and heave. The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces. And all the helpless souls within her drowned. All save one. A lady. Whose soul is greater than the ocean, and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace. Not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore. It will be a love story. For she will be my heroine for all time. And her name will be Viola.

  • Viola de Lesseps: [as Thomas Kent] Tell me how you love her, Will.

    William Shakespeare: Like a sickness and its cure together.

  • Viola De Lesseps: You have never spoken so well of him before.

    William Shakespeare: He was not dead before.

  • Viola De Lesseps: Master Shakespeare?

    William Shakespeare: The same, alas.

    Viola De Lesseps: Oh, but why "alas"?

    William Shakespeare: A lowly player.

    Viola De Lesseps: Alas indeed, for I thought you the highest poet of my esteem and writer of plays that capture my heart.

    William Shakespeare: Oh - I am him too!

  • William Shakespeare: Can you love a fool?

    Viola De Lesseps: Can you love a player?

  • Viola De Lesseps: I have never undressed a man before.

    William Shakespeare: It is strange to me, too.

  • Philip Henslowe: The show must... you know...

    William Shakespeare: [prompting him] Go on!

  • William Shakespeare: I'm done with theater. The playhouse is for dreamers. Look what the dream brought us.

    Viola De Lesseps: It was we ourselves did that. And for my life to come, I would not have it otherwise.

  • Viola De Lesseps: I loved a writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.

    William Shakespeare: I was the more deceived.

    Viola De Lesseps: Yes, you were deceived, for I did not know how much I loved you.

  • William Shakespeare: Follow that boat!

    First Boatman: Right you are, guv'nor!... I know your face. Are you an actor?

    William Shakespeare: [oh God, here we go again] Yes.

    First Boatman: Yes, I've seen you in something. That one about a king.

    William Shakespeare: Really?

    First Boatman: I had that Christopher Marlowe in my boat once.

  • [after sex]

    Viola De Lesseps: I would not have thought it: there IS something better than a play!

    William Shakespeare: There is.

    Viola De Lesseps: Even your play.

    William Shakespeare: Hmm?

    Viola De Lesseps: And that was only my first try.

  • William Shakespeare: You, sir, are a gentleman.

    Ned Alleyn: And you, sir, are a Warwickshire shithouse.

  • William Shakespeare: I have a wife, yes, and I cannot marry the daughter of Sir Robert De Lesseps. You needed no wife come from Stratford to tell you that, and yet, you let me come to your bed.

    Viola De Lesseps: Calf-love. I loved the writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.

  • Lord Wessex: I cannot shed blood in her house, but I will cut your throat anon. Do you have a name?

    William Shakespeare: Christopher Marlowe, at your service.

  • William Shakespeare: His name is Mercutio.

    Ned Alleyn: What's the name of the play?

    William Shakespeare: Mercutio.

    Philip Henslowe: It is?

    William Shakespeare: Shh!

  • William Shakespeare: Love knows nothing of rank or river bank.

  • William Shakespeare: You see? The comsumptives plot against me. "Will Shakespeare has a play, let us go and cough through it."

  • Philip Henslowe: Will! Where is my play? Tell me you have it nearly done! Tell me you have it started.

    [desperately]

    Philip Henslowe: You have begun?

    William Shakespeare: [struggling with his boots] Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move.

    Philip Henslowe: No, no, we haven't the time. Talk prose.

  • William Shakespeare: Love denied blights the soul we owe to God.

  • William Shakespeare: A broad river divides my lovers: family, duty, fate. As unchangeable as nature.

  • William Shakespeare: You still owe me for One Gentleman of Verona.

  • William Shakespeare: My muse, as always, is Aphrodite.

    Philip Henslowe: Aphrodite Baggett, who does it behind the Dog and Crumpet?

  • William Shakespeare: It's as if my quill is broken... as if the organ of my imagination has dried up... as if the proud tower of my genius has collapsed.

    Dr. Moth: Interesting.

    William Shakespeare: Nothing comes.

    Dr. Moth: Most interesting.

    William Shakespeare: It's like trying to pick a lock with a wet herring.

    Dr. Moth: Tell me, are you lately humbled in the act of love? How long has it been?

  • Viola De Lesseps: It is a house of ill repute!

    William Shakespeare: It is, Thomas, but of good reputation. Come, there's no harm in a drink!

  • Viola de Lesseps: At sea, then - a voyage to a new world?... she lands upon a vast and empty shore. She is brought to the duke... Orsino.

    William Shakespeare: Orsino... good name.

  • William Shakespeare: Good title.

    Christopher Marlowe: Yours?

    William Shakespeare: "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter". - Oh, yes, I know, I know.

    Christopher Marlowe: What is the story?

    William Shakespeare: Well, there's this pirate. - In truth I have not written a word.

  • Christopher Marlowe: I thought your play was for Burbage.

    William Shakespeare: This is a different one.

    Christopher Marlowe: A different one you haven't written?

  • William Shakespeare: It is not a comedy I'm writing now.

  • William Shakespeare: Love knows nothing of rank, or riverbank. It will spark between a Queen and the poor vagabond who plays the King - and their love should be minded by each, for love denied blights the soul we owe to God.

  • Christopher Marlowe: His best friend is killed in a duel by Ethel's brother or something. His name is Mercutio.

    William Shakespeare: Mercutio... good name.

  • William Shakespeare: ...and the whole bloody thing in verse.

    Ben Jonson: It's really not that difficult... if you try.

    William Shakespeare: Oh, and have you ever tried? But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun...

    Ben Jonson: You. Cannot. Play Romeo.

    William Shakespeare: What! Why not? I'm perfect for the role. I'm perfect! I will not let that oaf Spencer have another go at one of my roles. No! Only Will Shakespeare can pump the life into Romeo's veins!... And his codpiece.

  • William Shakespeare: [writing whilst eating a loaf of bread] Ah, "He laughs at wounds who never... had... a scar". Mmh. Ah, curse the crumbs. "He, jests, at crumbs... ." Oh, no, no, no.

    Susie Barton: [unannounced from balcony] "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."

    William Shakespeare: Perfection itself! "He... ." Who spoke? Who art thou?

    Susie Barton: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?"

    William Shakespeare: But another perfect line! Er, it's not one of Francis Bacon's, is it?

    Susie Barton: Ooh, no, no, no, no, no. Er. "Romeo! Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" Aren't you missing your cue? You're supposed to climb the ladder.

    William Shakespeare: Yes, of course. That's what Romeo would do. Hmmm.

    Susie Barton: Easy to see you've never played this scene before.

    William Shakespeare: Why, 'tis only now I write it.

Browse more character quotes from Shakespeare in Love (1998)

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